


Tells

by Writing_Like_Ill_Die



Series: Tea Roses [2]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Light Angst, Mentions of Harassment, Mentions of Sexism, Multi, New Dangan Ronpa V3 Spoilers, Polyamorous relationship, Polyamory, Poverty, Pre-Game Chabashira Tenko (mentioned), Pre-Game Gokuhara Gonta - Freeform, Pre-Game Momota Kaito(mentioned), Pre-Game Oma Kokichi, Pre-Game Personalities (New Dangan Ronpa V3), Pre-Game Yonaga Angie - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-10-14 14:50:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17510681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writing_Like_Ill_Die/pseuds/Writing_Like_Ill_Die
Summary: Kokichi isn’t good at many things. But he can tell when people are lying to him. (Including himself.)





	Tells

Kokichi wasn’t good at much, but... he could tell, well, tells. He knew when someone was lying to him. Which he guessed was a little sad since he got lied to a lot! His parents, his teachers, and a lot of students. There were two people who didn’t lie to him. Often, anyway.

 

But he knew their tells when they did. And often they knew he knew, and were desperate to keep something hidden.

 

Gonta scratched at things when he lied. Cheek, thighs, back of neck, chair(if he was sitting down.) It was almost hidden, to anyone else. The big guy didn’t like to speak or emote much. He only smiled around him and Angie.

 

Angie was a bit difficult to tell at first, too. She was naturally nervous, always playing with her hair and rewording her words. It was when she squeezed her fists suddenly that you knew she was about to say something that wasn’t true. If she broke something in her hand, then it was a lie that she *really* didn’t want to tell.

 

But they only lied when they were trying to make things seem better than they were. When they were trying to protect him. Those lies were forgivable.

 

He was okay when Gonta scratched his thigh while telling him that he’d fallen, and that’s why his knuckles were bruised.

 

(Kokichi knew it was Momota insulting him to rile up Gonta again. It always was.)

 

He was okay when Angie broke a pencil and told him that she was okay, that nothing happened.

 

(He knew that Chabashira called her a slur again. She always did that.)

 

“What are those?” He asked, one morning. A lull in college, in school, where they could sit in their shared apartment and relax. Well, try to. Try not to worry about the approaching power bills, about Gonta coming back from the factory with new burns, about Kokichi filling out a new claim of harassment for some asshole at the bar that might not be looked at, about the animators who offered powerful jobs to people who could only draw stick figures, and bypassed Angie, who had been studying for years.

 

He came down in Gonta’s shirt, yawning, ready to make himself some tea, from the plants that they grew themselves, because it was cheaper. Gonta wasn’t good at hiding his pleasure at seeing Kokichi in something of his. Angie wasn’t either, hiding her smile behind her own tea, when she saw that he was taking one of her cloth headbands off his wrist and using it to push his hair back.

 

He used sweeteners in his tea. He hated bitter things. He walked back to the table, but he saw unfamiliar papers. Gonta set his large arm over them casually.

 

“What are those?” He asked, the picture of curiously calm despite his heart beating just a touch faster.

 

Gonta scratched the table. Angie squeezed her hands, but pens were harder to snap than pencils.

 

“Bills.” Gonta replies, calm and uninterested.

 

“Then you wouldn’t mind if I saw?” He said, his voice shaking just a bit.

 

The two shared a look. Gonta moves his arm. Danganronpa was spelled out in big letters at the top of the pages. They were partially filled out, with the names of the ones he loved.

 

“Why?” Kokichi asked. There weren’t many things he was good at. And he was miserable at hiding his tears. He was a crybaby, plain and simple.

 

“The survivors get one billion yen each.” Angie says, barely a whisper, voice shaking worse than his. Even Gonta looked downcast.

 

“We have to risk it. That, or live with the risk of dying of starvation somewhere down the line.” Gonta informed, blunt as ever. But his eyebrows knit.

 

Kokichi stares at the papers, daunting. This was a huge risk. One of them could die. All of them could die. But dying... would be better than continuing on, barely getting by, and getting harassed daily.

 

“Do you have one for me, too?” He asks, trying to sound confident. “I want to sign up too.” He tugged at his shirt.

 

Everyone has their tells.


End file.
